Nigerian troops rescued 178 people from Boko Haram in attacks that destroyed several camps of the Islamic extremists in the northeast of the country, an army statement said Sunday.
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Some of those rescued last week said they had been held by Boko Haram for up to one year in villages just 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Maiduguri.
“They include 101 children, 67 women and 10 men”, military spokesman Colonel Tukur Gusau said. Five motorcycles were burnt during the operation.
President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to crush the group and a multi-national joint taskforce made of 8,700 troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin is being set up in the Chadian capital N’Djamena to tackle Boko Haram. “Our terrorised women and children fled into the bush and returned to Maiduguri this morning”, he added. “Many” Islamists were killed, the military said, without elaborating.
Malari has been the target of numerous attacks in recent months, including a suicide bombing by a youth in a mosque in the middle of the Muslim holy month of Ramazan in July which left 12 people dead.
The statement assured that NAF will continue to give all necessary support to the ground force through its intensified and persistent efforts in the ongoing fight against Boko Haram terrorists in the North-East until all portions of Nigerian soil is safe and free from the insurgents.
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The air raids came as Nigeria and its neighbors prepare to launch a new multinational force to combat Boko Haram, in the face of the group’s escalating violence in the region.
